The ability to fix tissue effectively is central to the surgical process. In surgery, and in particular in arthroscopic surgery, fixation of tissue must be achieved under constraints of limited access. It is understood by those of skill in the art that fixation failure is a particularly important failure mode in the early postoperative period, and although many fixation approaches have been developed, the need for continued improvement remains widely acknowledged.
While a variety of techniques have been developed for coupling grafts of soft tissue to bone, it remains difficult to achieve good results in certain particularly demanding procedures. For example, the repair of an anterior cruciate ligament is a surgical procedure where the parameters of graft tension and graft positioning have a strong bearing on surgical results.